Monthly Archives: January 2010

To finish up the month, this donated top pieced by San and her group in NC – backing pieced by Tish (thank you SO much!). I was able to load this one tonight and quilt it quickly just before the end of the month.

I started a new pair of socks before making a mate for sock #1. While the instructions in my book are pretty good, knitting tends to be more vague than quilting and I was told to knit leg to desired length….and after I was done I decided the leg was shorter than I liked.

So I started a new pair — same yarn, different color and this time I’ll make the leg a little longer. I ordered more of the beige yarn too and I plan to make a pair with a longer leg from it and then if I have enough left over from both batches, I’ll make sock #1 a mate.

I also managed to load and quilt one of my tops, the twisted Kaleidoscope quilted with the Circle Lord Swirls template.

I did mention that while that template is on the table, I’ll be doing several quilts with it. This is #2 and I’ve got at least one if not two more tops that will get this design before the template comes off.

Just another hour and a half and I was done with this donation top from Sharon that I’d spent most of the afternoon working on. I think this is a Disappearing 9 Patch but I could be wrong. It’s hard to get a good photo downstairs at night but you can see the floral prints she used and the flower quilting I used from the Pajama Quilter DVD.

And a little of the quilting on the back. This was a large quilt so I was happy to have the backing pieced for me by Sheree.

I’m in love with socks and I think they’re going to be the perfect travel project just like I wanted.

I did take a break from my sock this afternoon to load and start to quilt another donated top. I’m using a flower motif from the Pajama Quilter DVD — the simple one but there are lots of florals in the quilt so it’s looking good.

Keith got home tonight and I think he’s home now until our trip to Los Cabos in a couple weeks. We’re looking forward to some beach time.

In the meantime, since it’s too early to sleep (12:45AM) I think I’ll go downstairs and quilt for an hour or so.

I’ve gotten my days and nights completely switched again so I’m getting ready to head to bed now at 6AM. I’m not sure what happened to yesterday – I slept, read, watched a movie, knit and UNknit on this sock of mine and here it is time to go to bed and I didn’t quilt a stitch but I did do some Wii exercises around 2AM and it chastised me with a mini lecture on the importance of getting enough sleep.

Ignore the chubby little foot but I’ve got a heel of sorts. I had a hard time understanding the instructions after I turned the heel – I figured out how to pick up the first set of stitches but ….well, it’s just too hard to explain. I’m not worried about my mistakes because I’m learning from them.

Maybe I’ll get a top loaded on the longarm when I get up but I have a feeling I might be picking up this sock again.

Well I worked on the QAYG blocks and got my backing made but nothing worth taking a photo of ….I’m up to 72 QAYG blocks and am working my way toward 96 which will be enough for two quilts.

A few people have written asking how to join the blocks and while I haven’t done it myself, I do have links to Jan Mac and Keryn’s blogs at the bottom of the page with the block instructions that show you how they assemble them. So check out those links if you’re curious.

I think I mentioned that my goal was to be able to knit two socks at a time, toe up, on two circular needles and I’m still aiming for that but after practicing on the toe a few times I decided to do the easy part first….and I also decided I’d try to do a single sock before attempting two at a time.

And I just LOVE these needles except I like the longer one so I’m going to have to get another set of them. Nancy recommended them and I can’t believe how much nicer they are than the Clover Takumi ones I had here and they’re prettier too!

By the way, they’re sitting on one of the books I bought but I’m actually using the instructions from the other one.

The same twisted 9 patch blocks are on my design wall but I’m slowly making progress on them. I need to go back to making 9 patch blocks now as I’ve twisted all the ones I had.

This quilt will take (48) 9 inch blocks (blocks are 9.5 with seam allowances and I started with a 6 inch 9 patch block (6.5 with seam allowance)) It will measure 54×72 which is a good size donation quilt.

I also finished quilting this top sent by Cecile for me to quilt and donate. I used my Circle Lord Swirls template. It’s been a while so I was a bit wobbly in places — it won’t be very noticeable when it’s done thanks to cotton batting and washing/drying the finished quilt.

Bouncing around in the channels with the stylus is my biggest challenge with these giant templates but I love the texture and the results I get and once I’m warmed up it’s not bad. In fact I just ordered the Pampas Clam board the other day — I’ve been wanting a clamshell version and this can be quilted with or without the *grass*.

I always make sure I have several quilts lined up before loading one of the templates on the table so you’ll be seeing a few of these in the next couple weeks although I’ll alternate with some freehand quilting too.

I have kind of a weird system for tracking my stash used – I add it to my database as I USE it since that’s the easiest way to make sure I track it all but technically I only count it as used at the end of the year if the entire quilt is finished so I have carry over from last year. It’s an odd way to count I know but that’s what works for me….I don’t think I’ll try to report weekly but maybe on my monthly summaries I’ll monitor my progress.

I’m at 51 yards used just for the finished quilts, my pillowcases, and QAYG blocks for HeartStrings that will get sent to Jay to assemble and finish but the faster I finish things, the higher the number will climb because I’ve got stash in a lot of tops and pieced backs waiting for quilting.

I didn’t buy any fabric this week but I wasn’t so good earlier in the month.

I did work a fair amount today with progress made on the 9 patch quilt and I’m about half way through quilting a topbut I’ll show you those tomorrow since I didn’t take any photos.

On the subject of football, I was sorry the Vikings lost tonight and won’t be going to the Super Bowl but given all the turnovers it would have been a miracle if they’d won.

At this rate, I won’t have many quilts ready for binding in time for the Olympics.

Has anyone out there had any success with Wii Fit?

We were out most of the day and since coming home — I’ve been playing with the Wii Fit we bought today. I’m not sure if I believe it’s going to help me lose weight BUT I’m hoping the Yoga stretches will help.